I actually really really like The Rite of Spring. I enjoy the more darker or fast paced stuff, but thats about it.

man I'm glad you said this. I am a fan of stravinsky's work and the rite of spring is probably my favourite by him.

stravinsky is my favorite classical composer. i like a lot of the russian composers, too.

It's not something that I would choose to listen to, but I don't mind listening to some every now and then

I've heard an arrangement of Bohemian Rhapsody for an orchestra. It works pretty well, but short in comparison to other big classical pieces, obviously.

yeah sometimes I catch myself wondering what the greats would think if they heard the music I was listening to

that said I would self identify as the #2 classical music guy after jeff in these parts so yeah

these days though I've been listening to an increasing amount of Brahms, Mendelssohn and Grieg as opposed to before where I got really into some stuff by Bach and also on the opposite end of the spectrum, Dvorak.

I'm not very well rounded

im a mozart man myself[/house reference]

That's actually from the Professional.

And yeah I love classical.

yeah sometimes I catch myself wondering what the greats would think if they heard the music I was listening to

that said I would self identify as the #2 classical music guy after jeff in these parts so yeah

these days though I've been listening to an increasing amount of Brahms, Mendelssohn and Grieg as opposed to before where I got really into some stuff by Bach and also on the opposite end of the spectrum, Dvorak.

I'm not very well rounded

Yeah man, Mendelssohn is great. I didn't think many other people knew of him! (at least, on GW (but then again, classical music isn't huge around here so))

interesting, it sucks big time; together with Minimalism is for music what raping your mother in a church would be for catholic religion.

Why? It has a distinctive taste of it's own whereas tonal music is bland and tasteless

nobody said atonal was a genre

Atonal music can rhythm. That's often all it has. It just has no tonal centre.

I have written a fair bit of atonal music in the past and the one thing you can stick to is a rhythmic idea rather than a tonal idea, which is in fact all you need becuase tone is rhythm, but thats something different.

I kind of agree with you that we all hear a tonality in something, but there's no always an obvious tonal centre, so I guess thats what we associate Atonal as.

I think Schoenberg is a good example of 'Atonal' music that whilst may not have much a melodic interest, definitley has a colour and a mood to it. Sometimes thats all you need.

Jaruten what is wrong with minimalism? I love minimalism and use it a lot when I am making music. How is it like a rape?

Every style has its distinctive taste of its own. The problem with atonal music is that, although an interesting concept, it is a bit contradictory and pointless, because music is supposed to be a set pattern of sounds with a distinctive rhythm which can be recognizable and can become familiar. Atonal music tries to create music that has no rhythm, no tonality and no obvious pattern; and the problem is that why would you listen to such things if there is nothing in it you can relate to?
Of course as hard as atonal music tries to be atonal, its IMPOSSIBLE to be completely atonal, since the mind is always trying to put the sounds you listen in a harmonic background, therefore even in atonal music you will subconciously have a sense of tonality...

wow, you're amazingly ignorant.
1) Atonality is NOT A STYLE
Atonality is the term given to music that mostly plays atonal chords and scales. Doesn't go beyond that. Therefore:
2) Atonality has nothing to do with rhythm
3) Atonality has tonality, what it may not have is predominant tonal harmonies/melodies

4) Concerning the proposition: "music is supposed to be a set pattern of sounds with a distinctive rhythm which can be recognizable and can become familiar"
This is HORRIBLY and COMPLETELY WRONG.
Music is any arrangement of sounds you want it to be. Music needs no distinctive rhythm nor set pattern of sounds. Music does not need to be familiar. Music can be noise, it can be freestyled solos, it can be drones, anything can be used as music from storms to traffic noise, from wind noises to birds chirping. Music doesn't not need to have a clean production, it can sound dirty or messy. It can be ANYTHING. It is NON-RESTRICTIVE.
Now don't come to me saying what is good music and bad music, and that any atonal music or any weird sort of composition is bad music because it doesn't accord to what you preach music to be. Metal pretty much fits in your description and fuck man it is a horrible genre. But I'm not saying it isn't music even though I'd be tempted to.

5) You said: "Of course as hard as atonal music tries to be atonal, its IMPOSSIBLE to be completely atonal"
If you write sheet music, you can easily make the whole composition atonal. Whether I think it sounds good or not is another issue.
Let me tell you this, I am a musician, I made 8 albums, and most people (specially Inri) regards me as the most atonal musician around here. My 6th album, Future Science Vs Man is my biggest statement of atonal music. And you know what? I DON'T TRY HARD AT ALL TO MAKE ATONAL MUSIC.
It just comes that way, why? because I play music which I feel emotionally attached to. I feel that playing atonal things among tonalities is the best, because it is very expressive.
Ugly is the new nice.
And I think my album, atonal as it is, is definitively melodical, can be hummed to and such, and I find it to have huge replay value because there is always new things to discover in that music because it flows in a completely unexpected but adorable way.

But y'know I am not going to change your mind and continue hating atonalities in your narrow minded mind and be happy

First off, atonal is music. Second off, composers use complex systems to ORGANIZE and GENERATE melodic material. So you saying that atonalism isn't organized is stupid. And third, atonal can have an absence of a key. Atonal composers use tone rows so that each note of the 12 note chromatic scale is used equally. If all notes are used equally and none have more presence or importance than the other, how can it be tonal? Tonality asserts that one note is more important and is the "root" or "tonic" of the key.